Glen Johnstone over at Velvet Hammers throws his hat into the ring, dissecting another of Paul Krugman's diatribes about the eeeeevul Republicans, and how the Democrats were cheated out of the election. Check it out.

The Albuquerque Journal reports that Rep. Heather Wilson, who was trailing by as mush as 8% on election night, has won her race, due to the large number of absentee ballots cast for her.

The GOP has traditionally led the Democratic Party in absentee balloting, (due in part to the high percentage of military absentee votes), but she received 15,000 more absentee votes than did her opponent. That is a staggering number for a congressional race.

Similarly, Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-TX), won his contest, after receiving a 21,000 vote advantage over his challenger, according to this report in the San Antonio News-Express.

I know of these results because both of the winners were Republican incumbents, rather than challengers. I wonder how many challengers won on the strength of absentee ballots, and I wonder if they will affect the totals in the close races for the senate in South Dakota, and the Gubernatorial races in Oregon, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Alabama, where the GOP candidates trail by small margins.

It's disturbing to think that the DoD might become too closely affiliated with a political party. Makes me think of the Romans, with the praetorian guard choosing emporers. The Dems really ought to find a way to be more war-monger friendly. But I can't imagine how.

It's not the DoD that is affiliated with a political party; it is its members. The top leadership will follow the prevailing winds, but until the anti-military core of the Democratic Party adjusts its attitudes toward the armed forces, the GOP will continue to receive the lion's share of votes from the military's members. It's only self-interest on our part...

Page, over at The Last Page, has a twisted sense of humor. I like that sort of thing. Her takes on Election Night (and the morning after) in the newsroom of a nameless major paper in a large metropolitan area are absolutely hilarious. Check them out; start here, then go here. Make sure you are not eating or drinking anything that you don't want on your screen/keyboard before you begin.

(Note: This is the first post in which I have boldfaced the links. We'll see how this works).

Buried in all the debate about the ramifications of the election was what happened in Georgia.

I know that everybody knows that the Dems had a major meltdown in the state; the Gov, Senator, Speaker of the (state) House, and assorted others lost (and lost big in some cases), but nobody has thought about the reason. Did anyone consider "blowback"? Georgia's voters may not be as stupid as the state Democratic Party thought they were.

Sure, the whole "blowback" thing has been debated to death over the Wellstone fiasco, but is this a case of just desserts? After all, it was only a few months ago that the Georgia Democratic party was busy gerrymandering the congressional districts all over the place. The Georgia redistricting was flat out the most nakedly partisan redistricting plan in the country (even more so than the maps in Florida and Pennsylvania), and it came back and bit them in the tuckus. Remember, they managed to put Barr and Linder (both Republicans) AND Chambliss and Kingston (also both Republicans) into shared districts, in a state that GAINED two seats! Nobody else was quite that obvious, and the only other states that put two politicians into one district were states that lost seats.

I noticed that Barnes wasn't on anybody's radar for "in trouble", and the worries about Cleland and some of the congressional Dem candidates were fairly muted. Did everyone miscalculate the races that badly? I find it hard to believe that nobody had a clue that Barnes was going down, as it wasn't even close. And the guy who ran the whole show, the speaker of the (state) house, had served in that post (28 years) than any speaker, in any state, in this country's history.

I think the Dems really fornicated the canine in Georgia; not only did they help the GOP get rid of loose cannon Bob Barr (he was good on privacy rights, but he was still a nutjob), but by eliminating Chambliss's district, they encouraged him to run against Cleland, instead of staying in the House. I wonder if the GOP would have been able to recruit a top-tier candidate for the Senate if the Dems had been less partisan.

After seeing one blogger make a note on his site, and after receiving an e-mail about the topic, I have to ask my readers: Do you dislike the way I handle links on my site?

Many sites use a striking color difference, or boldface type, or underlines, to indicate links. My blog is a bit more subtle; the links are a different color, but it is close to the color of the rest of the text (It is actually the same shade of bugundy as the background). It has been my observation that radically different colors, typefaces, or underlines detract from the readability of a post, and I prefer something that is easy to read. In any case, my links are fairly obvious; the words ""this", "here", "post" or "link" will almost invariably harbor a link.

My question is: should I leave the site as-is, or should I change it, and if so, how? (Note: I am talking about how I deal with links, not content or style changes!)

UPDATE: 07Nov2002/1:12 PMI have decided to try boldfacing the links to highlight them, as per the suggestions of some of the responses. The burgundy color will distinguish them from simple boldface emphasis, which I will attempt to keep to a minimum. Let me know if this is better or worse than the old method.

It's a very attractive color scheme. And your right, the post is made more readable by more subtle links. Not underlineing just means that people have to take a second to actually read some of the post to find the link.

Sorry, I'm afraid I have to disagree. On my laptop at work (and to a lesser extent on my monitor at home), the color change is so subtle that it's sometimes very different to find the link -- especially if it's a short word.

I work around this by clicking at the beginning of the post and then 'tabbing' through the post to find all the links, but it would be easier if there were either underlining or a more stark color change.

On one hand, I absolutely HATE underlines, on the other hand, I find it mildly annoying having to search for the links. Making them boldface might be a good idea, or maybe increasing the color diff just a tad.

I nornally don't post links to commercial sites, but I'll make an exception for this one. Campbell's Soup and the NFL are teaming up to "tackle hunger".

All you need to do is click on the link below (takes you to the Campbell's Chunky soup page) and click on the helmet of the team you like the best.
Campbell's is donating a can of soup (up to 5 million) to area food banks just by clicking on a helmet at their website. It's quick, easy and can be done once a
day.

MSNBC reports that another suicide bomber has detonated, this time in a crowded shopping center in central Israel, near the West Bank.

This comes as a no-confidence vote in the Knesset is scheduled. Somehow I doubt that this is likely to change any wavering votes; in fact, I would imagine that it would strengthen the resolve of the Israelis, but then again, it is just another of a mind-numbing number of similar attacks.

The Palestinians continue this inexcusably barbaric behavior, and then get all indignant and outraged when supporters of the Israeli people call them barbaric. Calling a spade a spade is not an outrage; justifying genocide (as the Palestinians are attempting) is obscene.

In other news, Amnesty International accuses Israel of "war crimes" for its actions in Jenin and Nablus earlier this year, recycling the same discredited stories that even the UN refused to swallow. Maybe they felt a need to "balance" their coverage, since they finally issued a condemnation of Palestinian crimes. Must make sure that the Israelis get two or three demerits for every Palestinian black mark.

I've not had much to say recently. (I'm feeling a bit blah, which is part of the problem). Susanna Cornett, on the other hand, has a lot to say. Yesterday, she excoriated a "non-partisan" spin factory, provided a handy translation of a morbidly stupid Arab news article, and generally had a good time. Start here, and scroll down.